The Battle of the Buckaneers Puissantic
Avast! Far off the starboard deck the telltale sign of a merchant steamer showed itself. Another bright day was upon us, and the hope of a bountious catch rose aloft in our hearts as did the billowy plume. The majestic prow of our vessel joaled in and out of the cresting waves (meaning, for our land-locked readers, it seemed to throw itself to the ground again and again, an old sea phrase from when "fall" was first heard by the Gaelic speaking Irish, who Gaelicized its pronunciation to "joal." Those stinking irish, is there nothing they won't Mick up?)
As the ship drew nearer, it became clear that, perhaps, this was not the friendly merchant voyager we believed it to be. It could very well have been a crew of privateers, pirates ye ken, hoping to make swift with our equipment and supplies, new and undiminished so early in our voyage, and dispatch the crew to leave no soul to tell the tale. I bade our new navigator set a new course, and game lad that he is, he went to the task as Ol' Peg Leg steered us clear of the advancing brigands.
And what would a ship be without a navigator? This young skullpumpkin was picked up on one of our long-away journeys to the far east, where luxurious silks flourish on land and creatures the likes of which you'd never expect abound in the sea. The boy seemed apt enough, through his manner of speech be warped and skewed, we'll soon right him with a few months in our company and a few bats about the ears!
Blue Lips, Ol' Peg Leg, and myself were all prepared for our voyage, and cheerful in heart at the prospect of warmer climes and friendlier seas than had accompanied us in the past. Fortunately, this year the call was for summer season fishing, and our journey would be taking us to a sunnier destination than others had in the past and, inevitably, would in the future.
Ah, the first cast of a new voyage is always the finest. Our navigator proved himself to be a bit of a jacques-dandy in the beginning, afeared as he was of the sun's harsh oppression so easily found on the open ocean. What little help could have been garnered by such habidashery was minimal, though, as the mirror-like surface of my beloved blue aids the beams in seeking out yer hide, no matter where ye secret it away.
Clearly, this new recruit's lack of respect for our beloved Deep and, vicariously, Pelicor, did not sit well with me.
Tempers flared, and though Blue Lips attempted to come between his long-time commander and his newfound friend, there are few rivalries found in nature quite so deep-seated and as unerringly hateful as that between a Captain and a navigator. Words were exchanged, the conversation soon became heated, and upon the mention of his people's "unfortunate but undeniable predilection for aural rape," our new navigator attempted to engage his commander in Base Physicality. Unfortunately, the devotion my crew has for their Captain is unsurpassed by any who sail the brine, and Ol' Peg Leg himself through himself betwist me and my would-be attacker, only to catch the full force of the assault himself.
Reeling away, leaving the Chinaman open, Ol' Peg Leg had left me the advantage, and I quickly dispatched the young lad to the deck, informing him that, if we wished to continue to affront me thusly, he would find himself thrown to the deck again and again, and would soon find himself, as is the phrase on the high seas, "joaling like a prow."
Luckily for him, more pressing matters demanded my attention, and I was forced to divert my focus from his egregious lack of decorum to the very real concern that our voyage had not yet yielded a sufficient bounty. In point of fact, no fish at all had been caught, as long as we had already spent on the water. This was bad news indeed, for a lack of harvest would prove to not only waste the outift's time and money, but would only serve to further put on edge the crew's sensibilities, and would surely instigate more mutinous occurences, especially with this new and volatile mate aboard.
The desperation came quicker than I'd hoped. Ol' Peg Leg had become convinced that he could offset the loss incurred through our lack of marine catches by supplementing it with avian hauls. By catching birds, he thought he could prepare the winged creatures in such a way as to make them seem as fish. Seeing the ludicrousness of his plan, and realizing long before he himself did that he had little chance of catching a single bird, I allowed this activity to continue, if only to take the poor man's mind off the situation at hand. Of course, such actions would undoubtedly anger Pelicor, but in desperate times one must make the decisions that softer men would balk at.
Still, no catch, neither fish nor fowl, blessed our ship, and as the days wore on the rebellion welling up in the belly of each crew member was palpable as they went about their daily routines. Small scuffles began to form and, one fateful day, I was sure that we would find ourselves at each other's throats, ready to stop the life of our crewmates for lack of haul.
Suddenly, a cry from the crow's nest, high above the ship's deck. The rogue merchant steamer had once again been spotted, and rather than the lazy path it had seemingly happened to take towards us previously, it was now barreling straight towards us at an alarming speed. We harldy had any time to react, for the craft would soon be upon us, and fierce though my men are, little resistance they'd be able to put up against the full weight of the mechanized horror now bearing down upon us. Ol' Peg Leg brought us about, while Blue Lips readied the cannons (odd, for a fishing ship, but useful we find, just the same) and we fled as best we could from the oncoming leviathan.
As the behemoth bore down on us, and as our last hope of escape seemed to ebb away with the going tide, a squeak piped from my quarters, which has become the makeshift navigator's offices pending his eventual acceptance into our illustrious cadre. At first, I was quick to dismiss the snaptacker, readying myself for battle with the horrendous, probably Irish aggressors that would soon be boarding our ship, lest they simply ram the craft to splinters. But the boy was persistent, and before I could slap him across the face and issue another barrage of crippling racial slurs, he directed my attention to a map and, as quickly as the winds change, our hope returned to us. I relinquished immediate command of the vessel, instructing Ol' Peg Leg to do as the goulie said, and helped Blue Lips with our delaying tactic of peppering the onslaught with grapeshot while jettisoning all available floatsom and jetsom to speed our flight.
Under the direction of our new navigator, who if had not proven himself with this act of cunning would be hard pressed to find another means through which to legitimize his position, Ol' Peg Leg steered the vessel to what was to be our salvation.
Land! Never did I think I would be so grateful to see the dry beaches of land. Our new navigator, and as of that moment our new crew member, had happened upon a small and seldom acknowledged key which would not prove to be much of a trading port, but which would provide more than enough shoreline to beach our pursuers while allowing our smaller vessel easy passage over its shoals and reefs. The metallic monstrosity behind us, with a sickening groan of twisting metal, lurched to a halt as it found its harbor below the surface, and boiled with escaping air as it slowly went to bed in the locker of Capt. Jones himself!
We took a brief shore leave, after that harrowing journey, and celebrated our new navigator's heroism in the densely populated, tropical paradise the island's capital offered. The people there were warm and friendly, a native folk whose strange customs and exotic way of life showed me that these indigenous people were not so different from myself and my crewmates, especially in the light of what our newest acquisition had accomplished in the face of danger. Truly, these foreign animal-people, from wherever they came from, island, dark continent or yellow nation, were friends.. not foes.
As we wandered the streets, I began to realize I had visited this tiny isle before, in my early days of seafring under the tutelige of my first Captain, the Hnbl. Capt. James Argyle Sweatervest and his Rowdy Rockbottoms. Ah, to be a Rockbottom again... the journey into my own memory was a sweet one. And did remind me of a haunt I and my fellow 'Bottoms would often frequent.
So we visited this favorite inn of mine, and I introduced the crew to many fine local dishes. Unfortunately, the structure seemed to have been built, lo those many years ago, too near the shoreline, and was now completely flooded by fresh seawater. No matter, the seawater was drunk with the fishes and bilge, and all was good and plentiful.
We restocked our hold, bade farewell to our new friends, and finished the excursion in high spirits. Whether we were to catch a fish or not, friendships and comraderies were forged on those hard days on the open sea, the likes of which will hardly be put asunder with ease.
...
3/30/2006
Fish Caught: 0
Friends Made: 1
Days until Next Voyage: 7
...
Give 'em a heave ho.
posted by DeadLanguage | 7:30 PM
|
1 comments
